


Perfect Slumber

by casv98



Category: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Amazing, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Mental Abuse, M/M, Masturbation, Non-Consensual Voyeurism, Peep Show - Freeform, Skyloft has seasons??, Try to sleep and get a hard on instead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-05-07 10:07:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14668803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/casv98/pseuds/casv98
Summary: Fledge wants nothing more than to turn in for the night. It seems the night has other plans.A short-story revolving an adorable, vunerable, little, and not-so-little, fledgling.





	1. Winter Dreams

Everything is frozen and cold. A muffling blanket of finely shaved ice covers Skyloft and its many islands. The few still falling snowflakes slip on air, accompanied by a backdrop of a full moon peeking out between the clouds. The wooden panes of the academy creak. Recovering, from the many heavy boots fallen on them throughout the day. The stirred dust once again sink back into their crevices. The floors are deserted, students and teachers alike since long retired to bed.

One particular student, whose body is particularly emptied and particularly lax from a day spent heaving pumpkins from the storage to the kitchen, is now resting under a perfectly tempered handmade duvet. Drowsy, after a hearty meal and a nice core-warming bath.

A small content smile dances on Fledge's lips under the safety of dusk. The chilly air of the dorm room turns pleasantly warm in his chest as he breathes. He snuggles closer to himself, drawing knees towards to his chest, gently rumpling the crisp sheets in his freshly made bed. Perfect, is not enough to describe this late evening. However, a single disturbance in this perfect fall of night presents itself.

His neighboring dorm room. Well, it is rather the other half of a larger room, split between two separate exits. Furnished with sturdy, but still not at all fully covering, floor-to-ceiling wooden separators. From this odd arrangement of a dorm room, equally odd sounds are traveling through its walls. At times sounding something like closed-of sobs. The kind which are not unusual in moments when there's red, _too much red, too much,_ fluid gushing from your nose.

In an attempt to tune _that_ out, the too-tangliable mental image and the noisy trigger for it, the poor adolescent pulls his covers up over his pointed ears. It is none of his business after all, he argues while relaxing his forehead and savoring the comfortable climate of his bed.

He's almost peacefully claimed by the dark when he jolts awake from a thud and a word with the tone of a curse from the adjoining room. He stares limply, jaw slack with a bit of drool in the corner of his mouth, at the faded contours of his belongings. Sometime during his less lucid moments a stray arm and leg seem to have slipped from under the covers, now dangling from the bed’s edge.

After a slight pause and a rustle, again the noises from next door starts up and Fledge whines groggily as he rolls over onto his back. The already somewhat dried saliva leaking from the corner of his lips is wiped with the back of his hand in a exhausted but practiced manner. He opts for just accepting the ruckus by listening to it this time. Maybe with some luck he can will it into a makeshift lullaby.

After many useless tries of finding a rueful rhythm in the ruckus, lying awake during one of Skylofts longest nights, he curses himself as he comes to realization of his error. Oh gods, what an error.

The sounds hold an entirely different quality this time around. Fledge's ears and cheeks burn as he now continues to fail at drowning out the gasps and whispers spilling and vibrating through the wooden separators. It's not what he thinks, he tells himself with eyes clenched shut and hands covering them for extra measure. It's definitely not. After rubbing clothed feet together, one thigh pressed against the other, the covers pulled up over his burning pointy ears, the embarrassment of hearing such heady noises is finally too great. What makes him sound so much? What is actually happening on the other side of this temporary wall his bed was pushed up against?

Fledge sits up abruptly and feels the air surge to his warm back. He shivers and maneuvers his duvet. Now it hangs like a thick heavy cape over his shoulders, as he as stealthily as he can shuffles over from where he'd lain on his bedding to the end of it. There, is a gap the width of a palm allowing visuals of the other area. They never even talk through it, rather acting as if the separator is a solid wall through and through, walking around and knocking on the doors instead. To think he would soil their unspoken rule in their friendship like this… But he isn’t without reason. He just needs to confirm that he's just once again being stupid, which he's been told he is more times than he can count, and then he'll be back to his perfection of a night in no time. Plus, with the curtain drawn the little moonlight present is obscured making a pitch black blanket envelop the room, so he will surely not see a thing anyway. So. It can’t count. Yes.

In that contradicting fashion he assures himself whilst sneaking along the wall with a bowing frame. Reaching the destination he swallows stiffly as he leans over to glance through the gap. With a hand braced on one loose wall he peers inside.

The nightstand light is still on. Unlike his own, this one softly casts coloured shades of warm muted light along the room’s lines. With its help he can make out the silhouette of a wriggling, tossing heap on the mess of a bed, a downturned leg poking out. Fledge studies the exposed calf and foot, objective forgotten and thoughts derailing. Because, in his personal opinion, which he reveals about as often as a Loftwing sheds that rare tiny blue feather, a body in itself isn't inherently sexy, or even attractive. He knows others’ eyes track the girls hips when they walk or the boys’ arms and abdomen when they stretch during a particularly slow lesson. However, for him, a body is just that. A body, a blob of flesh with longer bendable pieces of flesh attached to it. Serving its purpose yes, but not beautiful or even interesting, in his experience of course. Where others see smooth soft delectable complexions aching to be touched, he feels nothing of the sort.

He shudders as thoughts of distastefully clammy, or freakishly coarse and often in one way or another smelly skin unearth themselves to the front of his mind. Flesh stretched over, in some cases, burly, burly, muscles. Muscles in turn swiftly raising and flexing appendages in jabbing motions. Looming over him. Blotting out the sky and any form of refuge. Accompanied by sidelined shouts from heckling throats, as he himself cowers and pleads for them to-

 _P-please, you guys, stop please_ \--

They never seem to hear him.

Arms, legs, stomach and even his neck contort in a sudden flinch as he is jerked mercilessly out of his, of no lesser degree, merciless daydream and into reality. Quickly, if a little clumsily, he shrinks back and away from the exposing light of his lookout spot. A barely audible thud signals the meeting of floor and the twisted blanket flung from the bed as if it'd been a persistently eager patron over at the Pumpkin Soup place’s bar. The rustling eases as they settle together. Though the human made noises don't.

Head tipped back against hard timber, Fledge has his eyes clenched shut. With one hand pressed over his blabbering mouth he is left to huff desperately through his nose. The twin to the suffocator clutches at his makeshift cape over his thundering heart as he entrusts his full weight to the thick room separator, air shuddering in, and out, of him. Alas, no matter how much he wills for it, neither tense eyelids or warm breaths taken from the absolute bottom of his soul, can prevent a vision already seen. His throat bobs tightly and his tongue feels coarse in his desert of a mouth as he continuously is made to listen to the irregular sounds. Sounds now accompanied with vivid imagery in his mind's eye.

Gods, he'd been, he had been, he _was_ actually _-_

Touching... himself. ‘Masturbation,’ his biology knowledge helpfully supplies, ‘a very common action for people of any gender or age seeking stimulant or understanding of their bodies’. He knows that. He does. But that had been… That had been more than... He'd never seen any inkling to him having urges for that sort of thing. He just assumed that he was above and away from that somehow.

Fledge bends his head down while letting go of trembling air stuck in his chest. Eyebrows tensely stuck in a pitiful upturned shape where he sits, vibrating in his skin with heated cheeks and watery vision. He closes his eyes, fully aware that his demeanor fits the absolute part of a bulliable, shameful student.

_Quit looking so miserable all the bloody time, you little-_

He opens his eyes again to the darkness of his home with an echoing crash in his mind, aiming for solace in the nothingness. He’s remembering too much tonight.

Barely turning his head he glances up briefly at the peep hole to the adjacent room. A shaky swallow wistfully disrupts his hearing as his hand falls quivering like a dry leaf from his mouth. The skin behind his bent knees grows clammy the very way he repulses and his heart hammers away against his ribcage. His personal blob of flesh uninformed of how this adrenaline rush isn't to prepare his body for booted feet and clenching fists. He looks away, leans his forehead onto his bent knees, and stares at his lap.

He can't believe himself. He can't believe that, that _this_ of all things _,_ would make him go tight in his underpants.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you are as excited for the continuation as I am. Ugh Fledge is such an underated charachter. He has so much potential dimension-wise.
> 
> I appriciate all feedback, kudos, comments, and again, thank you for reading!


	2. Winter Terrors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Picks up from where Winter Dreams left off.

Fledge thinks of times he's observed Link.

He’s seen through a closing swollen eye Link casually jump from waterfalls and face-plant on dusty bird nests. He’s witnessed while cowering in a corner Link casually jogging through the academy, entering other people’s rooms as he wished. Not even the bizarre time Fledge had fled below the narrow path under the northern part of the bazar and barely caught Link shooting himself towards the chimney’s inner roof on top of the academy and drop down in it like it was nothing out of the ordinary could compare to what he's gotten himself tangled up in tonight. Back then Fledge’d sat there, supporting an aching wrist, squatting on the narrow planks, wondering. Link surely must have known the bathroom was below there.

The thought hits him where it hurts and he feels himself twitch for it where he sits breathing the stale air trapped between thighs and torso. Maybe Link himself has a habit of… Spying. Maybe, the few times Fledge worked up courage to not just towel off but to properly use the bath, Link’d seen him. Seen him and all his carefully tucked away bruises and blemishes. Relished the power of knowing it all while revealing nothing from up above the ceiling. Maybe, he’d been witnessed as recent as tonight.

Fledge feels full of dare as he considers yet another distant thought. Perhaps he has been looked down on in a different sense than usual, for once. A less disdainfully loaded gaze directed towards him, replaced with a smidge of want. His lip quivers and he wrinkles his nose with a sniff. His pants only seem to be getting smaller. Still curled up with his back flush against a former tree trunk, cape softening the rough feel of the unyielding wood, he lifts his head, neck trembling with effort, and looks to the slit in the wall. His spine stutters as he detangles his cemented joints and muscles. He moves back to the gap hunched in on himself, leaning over the edge of his bed with feet tucked under his bottom. The mild column of light penetrating the gap reaches his eyes again. He notices the rumpled pile of cloth on the floorboards once they adjust and swallows before observing Link once more.

The faint light from next to his bed throw theatrical shadows on his jerking shoulders, his softly tensing back. Link's movements aren’t like the smooth flow Fledge is used to seeing. Like when he practices with the many logs at the Sparring Hall. It feels peculiar, like an itch in his brain. The fix image he had of Link, distorting.

He brings his consciousness back out to the world around him. Mere meters away shoulders jump irregularly in odd synchronization with tensing legs, toes squirming for leverage. Link's head bends toward his chest, exposing the line of his bare neck and its bony bumps where he lays there on his side, only to soon after throw it back again with a breathy grunt. Positioned as he is, Fledge can’t help but draw parallels between his string of thoughts about sneaking, spying and exposure, with what was currently unfolding. Returning the, if his fantasy was to judge, favour. He puts a supporting hand on the mattress between his knees to prevent getting thrown off balance. The other forms a loose fist held anxiously in front of his chest. In his daze he doesn't notice his honorary cloak slipping from a clothed shoulder, no longer held in place by his moist hands.

Oh. Did Link always have scars that big? The back of his legs, triceps, his back… Something like a smaller but deeper version of a loftwing scratch stretches from the roots of his hair down to his left scapula. Bruises are arranged with them in terrible bouquets. He takes a shot at swallowing the lump in his throat. No luck. Understanding is escaping him, as his hips inches closer to his perched arm. Spellbound. He can’t look away, can’t move away, worse yet even blink. How is it that, now, of all times, a body doesn’t seem like the prison of flesh he always blamed it of being? How could the vibrations in the air, giving away Link’s hitched breaths and sighs, escorting them to his eardrums while caressing the tantalizingly delicate ear on the way, whilst falling subject to beholding the twisting form of his midriff, joints, and back, reverberate so on his own physical state?

A squawk is trapped in his throat when he in his distraction makes contact with his arm. Glassy eyes flick from the offending touch to the movements on the other side. Together with a particularly intense moan caught by his ears he can't help but push against his arm again. His pulsing crotch bumps and rubs against the rigid limb. He's left with no choice but to clench his jaw and scrunch his face up in order not to give himself away.

_Again with that face. Amazing, he really just stays and takes it._

Fledge blinks his round eyes open. They’re half lidded as he checks to see if he’s been caught. At that moment Link decides to roll over onto his arching back and the suppressed whimper feels stiff on Fledge’s vocal chords. The shocked fluttering of eyelids pushes two streaks of tears from corners of his blurry vision. They draw cold lines on his burning cheeks. He's transfixed. As one shaking hand threads through the wild mop on Links head, as does one through the slicked hair on his own, intersecting a droplet falling from his chin, and messes with the tightly combed bangs. As Link forms a grip, Fledge clenches his fist too. It used to be so sensitive.

_Ugh this hairstyle is appalling. Let’s fix that._

The sting of his scalp barely registers anymore.

Not tearing his eyes from Link as his form lazily spasms, he releases his fist and lets the arm fall to his side. A set of fingers drags on the sheet he had so carefully protected during the long process of getting it clean, crisp and finally on his bed. Usually he would somehow turn the fact of its ruin into another negative argument, but right now the sensations from his fingertips, the pulse in his ears and the sight in front of him are about the amount of things he can process.

Finally letting his arm move his hand and fingers to his crotch, his waistband is pulled without him breathing. The resounding squelch is unbearable. His underwear barely lets go as it clings to his sludgy, sticky skin. He feels sick, almost gagging at the feeling, but again he can't stop. A gift from his room in form of a chilly breeze caresses the slimy area, making him hiss. He doesn’t dare look down, keeping his eyes on the private display of Link. He aims to drown his senses in what he sees of him. He feels his body move on its own, the things he’s in control of slowly pulling away from him. Although in a different sense, he can say he's used to that.

His hands take full action without him. They pull down his underwear, and wastes no time in touching him. The nerves in him tingle. A grip and a swipe. Feels nice. Good, even. Fledge sighs and sags a bit. He let his hands set the pace, thumbing the head, circling the girth, rolling the sack.

_You’re such a creep._

Fledge startles. That was a new voice. Since when  _was_ he this creeping kind of person?

_You’re such a creep._

No, but, it isn't him. His hands just won't stop. It feels too good. Disgusting, disgusting, he needs to vomit-

_Yuck, hurling your guts. Pathetic. You're always disgustingly sniveling. You’re nothing but a mess. Repulsing. Stop sniveling, if you get your disgusting snot on our clothes-_

That one he knows. That one he remembers. His ears quit being clouded and he hears Link being simultaneously louder and more muffled than he's been all night. Fledge sees why. Link is increasing his pace, pulling on his sun kissed locks and pumping himself tighter, faster. Fledge feels his own hands trying to match it. Both of their breathing is going haywire, sometimes not releasing air at all. Barely functioning, Fledge imagines what Link would think if he found him out. He'll surely look at him with disgust, or maybe soft kindness, learned from his many trips down to the surface, but in the end slap him across the cheek and with a firm boot to his ass kick him out.

Somehow, right now, the thought made another slob of fluid join the mess of him. His fingers wastes no time in using it to push against himself more.

When he regains presence of mind, again seeing through his hooded eyes, a shining pool drips off of Links stomach. Sensations jostle throughout Fledge's body and mind. He moves the fingers covering his mouth to gnaw on instead, feeling each indent of teeth on his skin. He hopes that whatever sounds he makes are less audible than Link’s. Though missing his climax, the current messy display of Link is nonetheless getting to him.

A moment of silent self-encouragement passes and Fledge cracks his eyes open one last time, aching to see the wrecked expression on his almost-roommate again. Apparently he is either the best or worst gambler, because he gets miles more than he wishes for.

A pair of half-lidded big blues, so painfully familiar, rests their sight right in his direction.

Fledge mindlessly continues to move his hand, not registering why it suddenly feels more intense. His frantic mind on autopilot, a single mission on hand. But then, like a remlit finally seeing the danger in staring into the brightest of loftwing-lights, it dawns on him. He's being looked at.

He’s seen.

His mouth opens uselessly. About to form words, explain, beg, anything. But he can't think, can't breathe. A mere wheeze fills the lack of syllables. His hand's movement falter and it clenches around where it happens to be around the head of his dick. His hips stutter from inaction, stomach clenching and pressure building from his audience. His round eyes flick from the startling blues, to faded red-bitten lips, to where tired hands still lay twitching against cooling scarred skin, to- to--

His agape mouth bites down harshly on his finger as he comes, tears staining his reddened cheeks, helplessly staring with pleasure squinted eyes into the eyes of his best, and possibly only, if even that after this, friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! The second chapter, took me long enough huh! It's fun to write though.
> 
> I am curious to hear what you think! (╯✧∇✧)╯I appriciate all feedback, kudos, comments. Again, thanks a lot for reading!


	3. Musings of Spring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning after.

The bed struggles to keep Fledge from teetering off the edge of it, but in the end he wakes by falling to the floor. With his body resting on two different levels he groans at the growing ache in his shoulder when he tries to scratch the back of his head. Fledge blearily blinks in the slowly brightening room and climbs back up under his covers to catch a few more winks of sleep before having to face his usual reality.

The bedding feels warm, secure and safe around him, so peacefully alone in the early peep of dawn. The temporary wrinkles on his face smoothen as he snuggles into his lone stiff pillow, lazily considering how to spend the day. There aren’t a lot of pumpkins left to move... Maybe if he sneaks out early enough he’ll stroll around the bazaar and plaza, say hi to Peatrice and Gondo. He scratches the hairline above his ear. Oh that’s right, he should thank Gondo properly for helping him make those adventure pouches for Link. He should also see if anyone could use another set of hands while he’s there, despite them belonging to him. ****

He stops snuggling against the pleasantly smooth fabric and frowns. Something feels... odd.

The mattress supports his full length when he rolls over onto his back and looks to the ceiling with a cocked head. Not finding what he's searching for in the brown wood of the ceiling he props himself up on an elbow. He scans his desk, rug, cupboards and hooks as he ponders. What could it be? Did he forget to fix something? Return something? His round eyes widen. Oh, no. Did he forget to apologize to Henya for all those servings of dinner he spilled? He gathers his hands. Groose always startles him, but that is no excuse. No wonder she seems to be frowning more when he enters the kitchen lately. He has to apologize to her.

Fledge gingerly moves out of bed to do just that, careful to preserve the little heat his body has mustered. After stuffing his feet into his old fraying slippers and taking a shot at reaching his toes with straight legs, he fights to keep the spots in his vision at bay when he rises up too fast, and starts shuffling towards his door. He considers how to best approach the subject and properly tell Henya how sorry he is. He’s wringing his hands over and over, picking at the skin around a nail as he thinks about all the ways she could react.

With only a few more steps to the door something in the corner of his eye catches his attention. Fledge looks gingerly over his shoulder. Oh, it was only the gap in the wall. Wonder why that caught him off-guard. Fledge snorts to himself. How silly, he reprimands himself and turns back.

But a few seconds pass and he stands there, one hand clasped within the other, both suspended up in front of his chest, unmoving. He's staring at the door he plans on walking through, yet he doesn't see it. His body screams at him to breathe but he has forgotten how. Finally the spell is forcibly broken with an intake of air so dry and cold and rough that Fledge is forced to double over and violently cough. One hand seeks itself to massage and calm his throat through its spasms, the other puts itself braced on a knee. A few painful moments pass but he manages to get his wheezing breath under some amount of control, still harshly clawing at the insides of his throat and lungs. He jaggedly straightens his spine and his joints feel rigid as he turns and looks through the framing of the gap leading to his neighbour’s room.

Fledge blinks at the sight of a soft bed lamp. He swallows as he registers a heap of covers and thick blankets on the floor. Horrified as his vision crawls further up without his permission his brain stops functioning.

On the otherwise empty bed, save for a pillow and a wool blanket steadily slipping of the edge, there’s skin, skin, skin and more skin. A naked back, a naked neck, the only thing breaking the pattern a full head of sun-kissed hair. The ribcage positioned on its side expands and contracts evenly, lifting an upper arm with it. Everywhere, the skin is scarred, marred, yet somehow so enticing stretched over the muscles toned from physical labour. Fledge can help but bite his lower lip and sigh.

Realizing what himself Fledge tears his eyes away with a silent gasp. He stumbles as he physically turns around, as if that would make the whole thing disappear. Inevitably, the events of the night piece by piece return to him, one jarring memory leading up to the next. The sounds, his stupid curiosity. The fantasies. More and more.

Each moment he stands there, nervously smoothing down his hair and curling shoulders in on himself with loose fists held up against his cheeks and lips, is a moment of torment. He's gripping his green tinted hair on the verge of ripping it out when as a final curse he recalls the blue into which he’d stared as he’d lost himself. Oh- oh dear… What in the name of the Goddess had he done?

His adrenaline sensitive nerves make his pointy ears twitch at the sound of boots outside his door. He’s out of time to wallow. His current state makes each thud hitting the floorboards feel like the entire island is trembling and he stands still as death as he waits it out. Voices eventually grow loud enough to accompany the booming quakes.

“Hah! The wimp doesn't have the guts to show up today huh.”

“You did him good, Groose!”

“Yeah. Hehe.”

For a moment, things are back to normal. For a moment he’s in the world where he needs to always be alert, always anticipating a clash or slander or -- whatever they feel he deserves that day. Mornings turning into evenings, todays into tomorrows, week after week it’s all routine. Once the trembling moves away from his room, the arms around his midriff tighten. Fledge sinks down onto the chilly floor and hates the dampness on his cheeks as he cries. What if Link, his dear friend, ends up joining them now? What if-a shudder runs through him and he needs to take a moment to catch elusive air-what if Link really despises him for what he did?

He must.

He does.

Fledge just knows he does.

Fledge’s is in no shape to stop hiccupping. Nor the streaming tears. They’ve joined forces and gravity pulled rivers cascade down his cheeks. Fluids on his face are mixing their flows and he hates flesh, bloated and weak, more than ever, hates himself more than ever. He tries and fails at wiping with uncooperative hands. Unchecked yowls and burbling sobs escape his throat in his misery, mind not present enough to conceal them. He berates himself and everything. Why couldn't they just finish him so that he at least could escape the memories? Why. WHY-

Boots return to halt right outside his door. Fledge doesn't hear it. The knob turns, but Fledge doesn’t notice it. It opens a crack and anyone else would have heard the poorly concealed snickering. With a swoosh the door flings open and smacks loudly against the wall. The flower pots rattle in irritation. Fledge snaps his head up mid-sob, one arm and hand up as if they could shield him from whichever terror approaches. 

“Oi oi, what do we have here?” Groose takes sturdy steps into his quarters. A particularly heavy hiccup forces its way out from Fledge’s grasp.

“It seems something is infesting our dear academy.” Cawlin trudges in after him, visible past the huge muscle of Groose’s thigh. More fat tears rain down Fledge’s cheeks.

“Heh heh heh...” Stirch doesn’t move very far from the spider web in the doorway, but Fledge bunches up his shoulders and moves his vision down to the three sets of familiar feet. Force of habit.

Fledge finds himself thinking, as he observes the spot of sun he only now noticed moving across the floors of his room. Despite breakfast being served ages ago, he's not hungry. His stomach never protests lack of food, his throat never years for water. He times all meals himself. He wonders when that began, and he realizes how disturbed of a person he really must be.

“Ignoring us now, huh?”

Fledge flinches at a sudden three rhythm snap to his right. He doesn't dare glance up. Another three snap-like sounds. He holds his breath. A door rattles from the jostling of a knob. It’s not his, his is wide open with Cawlin and Stirch routinely checking the hallway. He can tell by the way their footing shifts.

“We’ll teach you to ignore, you pathetic little snitch!” A floorboard creaks as Groose leans his weight onto one leg. Fledge knows it, sees how one heavy foot leaves his vision and abandons the other on the ground. He’s tempted to brace himself and close his eyes but finds that he doesn’t have the strength for even that. But he knows what’s coming, he knows it’s coming.

“Fledge.”

Groose halts his foot mid-air and puts it down in ready-to-bolt stance. Slowly he strains his neck to glance over his shoulder out through the doorway. There stands a haphazardly dressed Link, barefoot, no shirt, and pants barely on his hips, huffing for air. With each breath he regains parts of his composure and straightens. The light of the corridor throws a halo around him, caught in the dust and fuzzy strands of hair covering his cold-prickled outline.

Fledge realizes that he too looked up at the sound of the fifth voice joining the choir. He feels the cold air biting his eyes dry as they wide like saucers stare unblinking. Oh Goddess. Oh goddess, it's him. Everything and everyone freezes in their tracks, a fragile moment so early in the day. Fledge mouth is agape and fights to form words through the shocked pause.

“…Aa-I-I’m… Link, I’m so sorry. I’m s-so sorry, please. Please...” At this point Fledge doesn't know what he’s asking for. He doesn’t reach out a hand towards Link, nor does he recoil by scooching further back in his room. He simply stays where he is, on the floor, begging. For forgiveness? Help? Death? He doesn't know. He has no idea. It’s simply that seeing Link stand outside in the hall feels like salvation. And he’ll take salvation from Link in any form he would care to give.

Meanwhile, Groose shakes himself out of the spell. Actually physically shakes himself, then speaks. “Seems the rescue patrol is here, fellas.” Groose and the others probably misunderstand and they all laugh at the turn-out. Seeing as they almost preen at Fledge’s misery they probably think the credit goes to them for him seemingly having a breakdown on the ice-bitingly chilly floor. Everyone’s hot breaths ghosts about in front of their faces. “Ha ha, like a wimp like him makes a difference.”

Groose turns back around and swings back his leg again, bringing it down in one fell swoop. He hits Fledge across his shielding arm, that he cared enough now to raise, but the weight of the kick sprawls him flush with the floor. Fledge doesn’t catch himself and tastes an explosion of tangy copper after his chin makes an impact. He gasps but then coughs, a weak spray of red splatters on wood and carpet. He feels his tongue throb and he fears he's drooling because something is dripping steadily from the corner of his mouth. His nose also suddenly got an awful lot more runny. With his nose and mouth flooded he has trouble catching his breath. Gurgling sobs is all he can manage.

“Shit. What the fuck-” Groose mutters as he takes a retreating step. He sputters, looking between the tense frame of Link and the unrising form of Fledge. He grins in victory, nostrils flaring, but it’s not satisfaction that reaches his eyes. “T-that’s right, and you -you  _stay_ down. You filthy uh- person?  _Fuck._ ” Groose backs up and the group hastily retreat as their leader exits the premise. All under the encouraging whoops from Cawlin and Stirch, calling lines like  _Nice one, Groose!_ and  _That'll teach him, Groose!_ whilst the man himself shushes them with a finger over his mouth as they shuffle away.

No sooner than the trio leaves does Link rush in. Not that Fledge would know, the hit he took from kissing the floor sent his mind reeling. He thinks he should raise a hand to wipe the drool still pouring from his mouth but the thought is chopped, remodelled and twisted until the command to his body is lost. Link swoops down behind him and Fledge does register a gust flowing over him, and then at a time later something gripping under his armpits hoisting him up. Once Fledge is sitting on his bum he has trouble staying that way. Link drags him hurriedly to the cupboard door and leans Fledge’s back against it. Streaks of blood in various stages of drying stretches along the floor. Link sits himself between his outstretched legs, setting a hand firm on Fledge’s thigh. He’s so close.

Fledge sees Link sitting where he sits, and touching where he’s touching, peering so closely. He just has a hard time organizing his thoughts.  _But aah,_ Fledge thinks,  _this must be what a happy dream is._ As Fledge sits there hunched on the floor enveloped in dream-Link’s steady embrace, he considers that, maybe, everything is going to be okay. He even dares to put the quiet moment in jeopardy, though the first attempts at using his voice come out as wheezes. He swallows the weirdly tasting drool and he tries and tries to move his numb tongue between unevenly taken breaths.

“...iink.” Progress.

“Shh, don’t speak.” Since dream-Link made his entrance by uttering Fledge’s name, that’s the first thing he says.

Fledge swallows another tangy tasting blob before speaking again. “Link, aren’t... you..,” Fledge lulls his head forward and loses himself for a moment, Link startles and goes to straighten up Fledges head and neck, but Fledge comes back blinking to finish his sentence after clearing his throat, “angry...?”

“Angry? Oh I’m  _angry._ ” Fledge feels the blood drain from his cheeks. Of course. That dream-Link is tending to him now is because he’s a brilliant student and person not because he’s okay with what happened, what he did. “Groose he’s- Here, um, pinch your nose. Tighter. Okay, good. He’s such a perfect  _prick,_ ” dream-Link grits out. Fledge blinks. Groose? He’s angry about… Groose?

“But aren’t you angry about, about...” Fledge finds himself at a loss. Should he really press the subject? Maybe he should let himself enjoy this dream. After all, he’ll wake up eventually. Dream-Link continues to shush him and dabs at the swatches of blood running down his face with a handkerchief, the piece of embroidered cloth seemingly materialized out of nothing.

“Talk less. Pinch more.”

Fledge obliges. Why should he argue with a dream? And so he sits, on the tainted floor of his room in the winter cold. His only friend by his side, tending to superficial injuries when far worse echo within him. Each gentle pat, each careful swipe and prod dealing edged blows to his core. The tears that had at some point ebbed, again solemnly fall from his warm eyes, this time taking grime and blood with them to drip stains on his clothes. For getting a day as perfect as yesterday’s he shouldn’t be surprised that he would pay with the following one.

But he has to say… And once more a careful smile dances on his lips. Considering where he is, whom he is with… Fledge looks up to the very realistic bare arm in front of him, its hair raised in a futile attempt to thwart the cold air. Fledge raises a hand to rest on it feeling the bumps of dream-Link’s skin subside under the added warmth. He glances up at its concentrating owner, and meets blue’s so intently scanning him.

Fledge cannot tell how fast or how much time passes, but he hopes the rays of reality’s morning comes later rather than sooner.

\----Tiny Epilogue----

The day drifts into afternoon and evening and night. Fledge is now aware, as the stripe of sun reaches the other end of his room, that he’s not, in fact, dreaming. The haze has cleared, his wounds treated with warm calloused palms, and there’s a warmth right at his back. Whatever dreams he thought he had of a kind Link sticking close to him, caring for him, were not real dreams. Yes, he knows he’s not dreaming. There’s no way he’d be able to dream up something this good, this wholesome and pure. He’s too twisted for that.

Fledge shifts stiffly, turning towards the living heater lodged between him and the wall. Link doesn’t stir as Fledge wiggles out of his embrace. When he has scooched up to position he carefully bends Link’s head to rest on his chest and gingerly envelops the body next to him. Fledge pets Link’s hair and strokes his back under the duvet. Soon arms encircle his waist tightly in response, and together they drift off to sleep away the night.

And if they at some point did something other than sleep, none would be the wiser.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter! Feels good to conclude a.. book? Idk what you call it. A work? A work! :D Thank you for sticking with this small adventure, it's been fun! If you want more the best way to get it is to tell me ;)
> 
> I appreciate all feedback, kudos, comments, and as always thank you for reading!


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